THERESA MAY’S carefully scripted statement as to why she has decided to hold an early election hid the real reason for her decision.

In the 2015 election, the Conservatives broke the rules on election spending in a number of marginal constituencies, for which they were fined a record £70,000 by the Electoral Commission.

Files were also sent to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Any prosecutions and disqualifications would have led to several difficult by-elections and a lot of bad publicity, which could have wiped out her majority.

It also conveniently cancelled the by-election in Manchester Gorton, where the Conservatives were forecast to have lost their deposit and the Liberal Democrats to do very well.

Mrs May’s main motivation for the election was her desire to hide this from the wider public.

Let us also not forget her so-called support for the Remain camp yet, like Jeremy Corbyn, she did nothing to actually help the campaign.

Now, her advocacy of Brexit suggests that she only claimed to support Remain to keep her job if, as expected, Remain won.

Tony Fisher, Strensall, York